As much as a cricketer’s career is scrutinised and debated upon in India, their lives and stories related to it garner equal attention. It is only natural that this happens, for most cricketers become household names in this nation and following them and their whereabouts becomes something that Indians seek pride in.
There are downsides to it as well, as, at times, the passion goes overboard and those very cricketers are named and shamed, sometimes aggressively, whenever the team fails to perform.
Elucidating all of this through a three-hour-long movie, thus, would have been an arduous task for Neeraj Pandey and company when they would have set out to make a biopic on the life of India’s most gifted captain, who was also, perhaps, the luckiest one.
One of the problems that they would have encountered for sure in the early stages would have been the responsibility to show to the audience what they do not know. A chronicled cricketer like MS Dhoni needs no formal introduction and the craze that cricket drives in India meant that the fans already knew most of what was to unfold before them on the screen.
Therefore, credits must be given to the filmmakers for bringing to the fore some of the untouched and unknown parts of the cricketer's life, in order to enable the fans to get a closer look into the story that made Dhoni what he is today.
Here are five instances from Dhoni's life and career that would have remained unknown to most of his fans, had it not been for the biopic.
#5 Dhoni overpowered by Yuvraj in Cooch Behar Trophy final 1999-2000
The Under-19 Cricket World Cup of 2000 was a revelation of sorts for two of India’s most famous cricketers who played in the first decade of the 21st century. Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif (Kaif led the Indian colts in the tournament) took giant strides in their respective careers using their performances in the world tournament as a pedestal.
Dhoni, on the other hand, first came into the picture in 2005, despite being of the same age as Yuvraj and Kaif, when blasted the now-fabled 148 against Pakistan in Visakhapatnam, despite having made his debut in 2004 vs Bangladesh.
However, had Dhoni been a little more cautious in the Cooch Behar Trophy final of the 1999-2000 season that was held at the Keenan Stadium, Jamshedpur, and had things gone his way to some extent, he might have played alongside the aforementioned gentlemen, who were, in due course of time, about to become his teammates in the senior team.
Batting at No. 7, Dhoni, playing for Bihar, helped revive his team from a precarious situation of 159/5 and led them to stumps at 254 without any more losses on Day 1. At Stumps, he was unbeaten on 70 off 116 balls having already hit 11 fours and two sixes. His batting partner, Ratan Kumar, was unbeaten on 77.
However, it was on the next day that the game turned on its head, and with it, washed away Dhoni’s chances of making it to the India U-19 squad for the World Cup that was looming within touching distance.
The overnight duo could only add 20 more runs on the following morning as Dhoni miscued a delivery from a Punjab bowler and was caught for 84. Bihar, thereafter, were bowled out for 357.
Punjab, in reply, finished day 2 on 108/1 with their captain Yuvraj Singh unbeaten on 24. The following two days spelt doom for Bihar and their dreams of winning the title, but more so for Dhoni and his dreams of making it to the India U-19 side, as he could only watch, helplessly, from behind the stumps, as Yuvraj massacred the Bihar bowlers to all parts of the Keenan for more than two days.
The left-handed batsman hit a triple hundred – after being unbeaten on 232 on Day 3 – and was finally dismissed for 358, that was one run more than Bihar’s total in the first innings. Punjab mounted 839/5 and won the championship on the basis of the lead in the first innings.
In the movie, it was shown that Dhoni was extremely disappointed with his dismissal in the first innings, and lamented the fact that he couldn’t get to bat in the 2nd innings.
#4 Duleep Trophy selection that never came
In 2001, Dhoni was selected to play for the East Zone in the Duleep Trophy, which used to be an inter-zonal first class tournament back then. East Zone were scheduled to play South Zone in Agartala from January 25-27, and Dhoni, who was selected as a wicketkeeper-batsman, was not informed in advance about the proceedings.
As shown in the movie, it was only through a newspaper column that Dhoni’s erstwhile school teacher came to know about the cricketer’s selection, and as fate would have it, Dhoni was informed about it a mere 24 hours before the date when the players were directed to report at the Dumdum Airport, Kolkata before their departure to Agartala.
Shell-shocked by the turn of events, the then 19-year-old knocked on the doors of the regional cricket association President, but by the time his concerns were addressed, it was already late night, and it was only an unlikely overnight road journey from Ranchi to Kolkata that could have given him a chance to make it to the airport in time.
Dhoni and his friends requested the President to arrange for a vehicle and assured him that they would reach the airport on time if they drove through the night. Help, however, was not to come, as the President was reluctant, and instead left it to a group of youngsters to arrange for a vehicle and reach the airport, all in less than 12 hours’ time.
The Ranchi-born lad didn’t give up, though, and with some help from his friends, managed to reach the Dumdum airport the next morning. However, to everyone’s shock and dismay, the flight had left the airport an hour in advance of its scheduled departure.
As a heartbroken Dhoni returned to his hometown, Deep Dasgupta played in his place against a South Zone that comprised of international stalwarts like Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Javagal Srinath. It makes one imagine as to what would have happened if Dhoni had indeed played there and performed well in front of those international India cricketers.
#3 No place in the Railways Ranji side
After the Duleep Trophy debacle, Dhoni, reluctantly, joined the Indian Railways as a Ticket Collector and was deployed to the Kharagpur Junction Railway Station. The day job as a ticket collector gave him the much-needed employment to earn a living, while the opportunity to practice and play for the Railways Ranji side unfurled as a bonus.
However, as it had been the story of the cricketer’s life, things were not to come that easily. In April 2002, as depicted in the movie, Dhoni was called for the national selection trials for the Railways Ranji Team organised in New Delhi. While the reasons behind what transpired there can be left to the wisdom of the reader, the turn of events would have surely made the incumbent India limited-overs captain re-think about his cricketing endeavours.
At the trials, Dhoni was given just one over to exhibit his batting skills was given just three balls to show that he was a good enough wicketkeeper for the first-class level. What the movie also revealed was the fact that such a partial treatment was only meted out to the Ranchi-born cricketer, as Dhoni revealed on the phone to his administrative head at the Railways.
#2 Dhoni’s tryst with Priyanka Jha
While Dhoni’s love-affair with his wife Sakshi Dhoni is a well-chronicled one, what most of his fans would not have been aware of was his other love interest, Priyanka Jha. One of the most shocking revelations from the movie, Dhoni’s first-love and the tragedy associated with it would have surely taken many of his fans by surprise.
During Pakistan’s 2005 tour to India, Dhoni had had a couple of torrid outings in the first two ODIs. While travelling from Kochi to Visakhapatnam the cricketer crossed ways with Priyanka, a cricket enthusiast and a big Sachin Tendulkar fan, who coincidentally happened to be Dhoni’s fellow passenger in the flight.
At first, the lady was only interested in using Dhoni to get herself Tendulkar’s autograph, recognising the cricketer as someone associated with the team, but not knowing exactly who he was.
After she found out about the role that Dhoni played in the team, she was apologetic. However, the cricketer urged her not to apologise while accepting the fact that he had not done anything worth remembering by then.
Perhaps it was this simplicity that impressed Jha the most, and she predicted that Dhoni would definitely perform well in the next game, that was to be organised at Vizag. And so it happened, as the Jharkhand cricketer blew away the Pakistan bowlers on his way to a magnificent 148, which was his first ODI century.
It was then and there that their love story took shape, and over the course of the next two years, it blossomed into a romantic relationship. Luck, however, was not to favour Dhoni even in his life off the cricket field, as when the cricketer was playing Pakistan during the 2007 ODI series, Jha, who was a resident of Delhi met with a fatal accident and passed away.
Dhoni was made known of this incident upon his arrival in Ranchi from the Pakistan tour, and the news of losing his beloved broke him into pieces.
#1 Dropping seniors from the national side
Finally, talking about the much-talked-about incident from the movie, as it turned out, it was self-explanatory. Post the 2-1 series loss to Australia during the 2007-08 Border-Gavaskar Trophy down under, the selected squad for the ODI tri-series that was to follow had a few noticeable omissions.
While the senior members of the side like Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman did not earn a recall, one stalwart who was dropped from the ODI team was the former captain of the side, Sourav Ganguly. In the trailer, three cricketers were classified by Dhoni as the ones who didn’t fit in the ODI setup anymore.
Now, it cannot be clearly guessed that Dravid, Laxman and Ganguly were the three cricketers Dhoni was opposed to, but if one looks back at the squad announcement for the triangular series (involving Sri Lanka as well) that followed the Tests, one would observe that Ganguly was the only big name to be dropped from the side.
Hence, the movie conveys that Dhoni had singled-out Ganguly as a slow fielder and someone who was no longer fit for the ODI team despite the legendary cricketer’s proven batting credentials.
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